


tonality

by evocates



Category: xXx (Movies), xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Genre: (Though depending on your definition of plot tbh), Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Is it attempted murder or is it sex? NO ONE KNOWS, Knifeplay, Language Kink, M/M, Porn With Plot, Public Blow Jobs, Public Sex, Rough Sex, Strangulation, Woundplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:04:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: Five times Xander got Xiang’s name wrong.And one time Xiang deigned to tell him.





	1. 香, "Fragrance"

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing here but rough sex and language kink, honestly. Some un-negotiated kink like breathplay and bloodplay in the later chapters. But then again, it is these two.
> 
> Some characterisations are taken from 28ghosts’s beautiful [_uncomplicated_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9604622). Go read that fic. And everything she has ever written for this fandom.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Some rather extreme kinks that hover less around ‘unhealthy’ than ‘fatal if done wrong’. None of them are negotiated beforehand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Un-negotiated woundplay, so…brief gore and blood.

They were in Barcelona for Xander's first attempt. 

Working for Gibbons undercover wasn't all that different from having the government on his side – fewer toys, sure, and hitting more government agencies, but the blood-rush and headiness of excitement were the same, and that was all that mattered to him.

Xiang was there. Xander didn't know why; didn't want to question it. Might make Xiang run away, bolting like a horse with his mouth forced open to be stared at. He had lived long enough to stop questioning the reasons behind good things happening.

Hard to think about words, much less sentences, when he had Xiang pressed up against the rooftop water tank of this hotel, the man's nails scraping across his back as he fucked into him. Maybe that was why he started talking: Xander didn't have good control over his mouth most of the time, much less when his heart was roaring in his ears.

There was a deep gash on Xiang’s upper arm. Xander would call it a mistake if he hadn’t witnessed for himself how fast Xiang moved, faster than a lightning’s snap, out of the way of the knife heading for his throat.

Leaning in, he pressed the tip of his tongue against the edges of the wound. The skin was still tight, not having been peeled off the muscle, but he could feel the places where the blood vessels had been split. They tasted different on his tongue, sweeter somehow, and Xander took a long, long inhale.

“You smell damned good,” he murmured, smearing blood over Xiang’s skin. He wasn’t lying – sweat-salt and blood-metal seeped deep into his nose, familiar and intoxicatingly new both. The last time it had been other people’s blood; Xiang had streaked it over his own face, smirking with bared teeth.

Xiang’s fingers dug into the bruise on Xander’s shoulder where he had been slammed into the wall by some brute of a man whose name he hadn’t bothered finding out. Xander dug his teeth against the edges of Xiang’s wound, setting his teeth against the very edge of the skin and tugging hard. 

Nails on his cheek. Xander gripped Xiang’s hips harder, thrusting into him hard enough to make aluminium rattle, the sound of sloshing water filling the air around them. The nails dug in deep, thumb underneath his eye, and Xander finally reared back.

Xiang was panting. Sweat slicked his upper lip, and his eyes were narrowed. The beads of moisture around his eyes could be mistaken for tears if Xander didn’t know the man. Since he did – for some values of the word ‘knowing,’ at least, because Xander wasn’t entirely an idiot – they were just some lucky sparks of pain given liquid form.

“Your name suits you,” he said, and licked his teeth to chase the taste of Xiang that was smeared all over it.

“What,” Xiang said, voice absolutely steady. The hand he had over Xander’s face didn’t even tremble.

Should be impossible. Then again, Xander had figured that Xiang was a man of impossibilities a long time ago. He still hadn't found out how Xiang ended up in that car after that plane had exploded. ( _That_ plane. There had been at least one other exploded plane since, but that one was pretty special.) All he knew was that they fell somewhat at the same time, and Xiang had also found the time to off Marke while he was falling.

Like he said: impossibilities.

“Your name,” Xander repeated. He tilted his head towards that hand, practically nuzzling against it even as he shifted Xiang higher up on the water tank. But it was his own breath that hitched as Xiang's heels dug into the small of his back and his hole clenched tight around Xander's cock. “I've been doing research.”

“With what?” Xiang asked. His nails scraped long lines down Xander’s face, one close enough to an eye to make Xander blink, as his lips curved up into a very familiar mocking smirk. “Google translate?”

Well, it was more that he typed that he _thought_ Xiang's name sounded like into Google itself, but... same difference, really. “Pretty much.”

Xiang threw his head back. It took Xander a couple of seconds - okay, more than that, like ten - before he realised that Xiang was laughing. Not in delight at Xander's accomplishment either, but in mirth. He was laughing his head off, chest shaking far more than they had while he was handcuffed on his knees. Far more than they just did as Xander was fucking into him.

He grabbed Xiang by the throat. But Xiang didn't stop; just looked at him, dark eyes sharp beneath those unfairly thick lashes. The gleam of that should be illegal, Xander thought to himself. Hard for him to feel insulted over being laughed at when Xiang was looking at him like this. Hard for him to feel anything except that twisting heat in his groin as Xiang dragged him closer.

“Put your brain to fucking me instead of trying to figure out my name,” Xiang said. His thumb rubbed over the thin welts he had left Xander's cheek, all condescension and mockery wrapped up in flickers of pain. “You’re using it better that way.”

Thing was, no matter what people said about him, Xander wasn't much of an ego man. Confidence in what he could do, confidence in his effect on people? That wasn't ego; that was just seeing the truth and not being falsely humble.

Anyway, the point was that he knew when he was out of his depth. Xiang was Xander being out of his depth in human form. Like his very existence in Xander's life was to show him how much he didn't know, his figure outlining the height Xander still had to climb.

That, Xander thought, was just pure ego. He grinned at Xiang, immeasurably pleased at insulting him even in his thoughts, and then lifted him even higher. 

When Xander slammed back into him, clanging the aluminium and steel of the water tank and scattering droplets over their heads, Xiang's lashes fluttered and he tipped his head back. Momentary lapse, sudden vulnerability. Xander took advantage, leaning in to tongue the wound on the arm again. Xiang groaned, muscles twitching.

Xander might be wrong about the name, sure, but damn did Xiang really did smell good. Tasted great, too.


	2. 象, “Elephant”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Un-negotiated breathplay.

Before the second time, Xander tried to do some research. Except that Nicks was being useless, blinking at Xander after he asked.

“I'm an ABC,” Nicks said, drawing out the acronym as if Xander was the dumbass instead of him. “I have no clue.”

“Why the hell are you the alphabet?” Xander asked, confused. 

Nicks rolled his eyes. “American-born Chinese,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I can't fucking speak Mandarin.”

“But I'm asking about Chinese?”

“Mandarin is the primary dialect of Chinese,” Nicks said. “Chinese isn't actually a single verbal language, but a group of them.” He looked as if he was going to keep talking, but he clicked his mouth shut instead, clearly having noticed Xander's gaping confusion. 

He sighed. “I have no fucking clue, okay? That's all you gotta know.”

“So you can't help?”

Nicks rolled his eyes again, a perfect image of an overgrown teenage boy. “Why don't you ask Serena?” he suggested. “Maybe she's seen his files or something?”

“Okay,” Xander said. If Nicks was going to be that way, then so be it. He would go hunting for answers elsewhere. 

“What makes you think that Xiang would leave his files lying around for us to peek at?” Serena told him, arching one eyebrow.

Her arms were crossed, fingers of one hand tapping against the opposite elbow. Blunt nails: ever since she started sleeping with Adele instead of him, she had kept them shorter and blunter than he had ever seen before. Xander allowed himself a couple of moments to imagine what the two women looked like in bed together.

Hey, he was a hot-blooded male. He was allowed.

“You never felt curious about it?” Xander asked.

“No,” Serena said. Her lips curled up into a knowing smirk he immediately disliked. “I'm not the one trying to ‘get him on our side.’”

She made air-quotes. Xander definitely did not huff.

He bought a Chinese dictionary the next time they passed by a bookstore. Would've gotten one with English translations but there were none available.

Tennyson didn't laugh at him. Tennyson was now Xander's favourite teammate.

***

The second attempt Xander made took place in a rather upscale bar in Berlin. The team had just brought down a group of neo-Nazis who’d got their hands on some security codes that could cost Merkel an election. Xander took a particular pleasure in beating their heads in. He could’ve used a gun, but this was so much more satisfying.

They were celebrating having saved the world and also having been badass. Well, more the latter than the former, but it was practically the same for all of them and Xander had never been the type for semantics. 

He was watching Adele having her knuckles fussed over by Becky when he caught Xiang out of the corner of his eye. Xander was halfway through his cranberry club soda at the time - someone had to be responsible for all of the drunks that needed carrying out – and most of his attention was fixed on his team, who were vacillating from being publicly indecent and starting out fights for fun.

Maybe that was semantics, too, but there were some distinctions that were too important to be missed. 

Or too glaring, like that massively ugly floral print shirt that came through the door. Xander lifted his eyes and lifted his plastic cup, but Xiang didn’t smirk at him. Didn’t even acknowledge him, really. He just headed upstairs.

Well, Xander had never said that he wasn't easy to bait. That he wasn't _easy_ , period, when it came to some things.

Later, he had Xiang on the floor, straddling his calves and pinning him down with his full weight on them. Xiang’s head was tilted back, neck arched against the carpet as he raised an eyebrow at the ribbons that Xander was winding and unwinding around his hands.

“Becky,” Xander said. He smiled. “It’s silk, you know.”

The other eyebrow raised. Xander barely had time to wonder which part he was questioning when Xiang bucked his hips. 

Of course Xander knew that he could only hold Xiang down like this because Xiang _allowed_ him, but it still grated when Xiang flipped them around until Xander was the one on the floor on his back. He had a great view like this, though, the ripped strips of Xiang’s shirt – that crime against humanity – framing his defined abs as he leaned over Xander with one hand on his wrists.

Oh, and: Xiang’s other hand disappearing between his own thighs, fingers sinking inside himself. 

“We should stop meeting like this,” Xander drawled, half-lidding his eyes to shut out everything except Xiang. “You should just join the team already.”

Xiang pulled back with a lingering pat on Xander’s wrists, stroking over the spots where the rough carpet had rubbed against the skin. Trails of silk streamed over Xander’s face and neck as he took the ribbons with him, and Xiang cocked his head. It wasn’t Xander’s thing, honestly, but he tipped his head back obliging anyway, letting Xiang wind the ribbons around his throat.

“Do you think I’m that easy?” Xiang asked. It would be an idle question if he hadn’t pulled at the same time.

Silk cut into Xander’s throat. His air stopped, and his head started to shriek. But he only drew his lips back, baring his teeth into a grin.

For some reason, that made Xiang laugh. He found the condom in Xander’s pocket – the crackling of the foil must’ve given it away when they tussled just now – and tore it open with his teeth. Black spots were appearing in Xander’s vision now as Xiang stroked his cock, smoothing the latex over it.

Xiang could make a boring chore like putting on a condom erotic. Xander had no room for surprise in his throat.

As Xiang sank down on him, heat gripping his cock so tight that Xander was now strangled both ways, Xiang’s eyes lidded. He tipped his head back, entire body loose and relaxed except for the tension on his arm where he was holding the ribbons by the leash.

Time to change the rules.

Reaching up, Xander closed his fingers around those slim hips. He thrust up at the same time that he threw his weight sideways. Xiang didn’t yelp, didn’t make any sound other than a sharp hiss, as he landed hard on his side, shoulder slamming against the carpet. Xander didn’t allow him time to recover, gulping air down his throat even as he grabbed Xiang’s leg, swinging it over his shoulder – man could do flying kicks, he could do this – and slammed deep inside him.

“You seem pretty easy for me,” Xander said, and gloried in the half-swallowed gasp that burst out of Xiang, as if Xander's cock managed to punch his voice out of him despite himself.

Knuckles turning white around the end of the ribbon, Xiang rubbed his cheek over the carpet. “You must’ve hit your head just now,” he drawled, still sounding so calm. “Lost more braincells if you can't even parse that these are two different things.”

Damned unfair that Xiang could still use a word like 'parse' when Xander was trying to fuck his brains out. When Xander was grappling for words while trying to breathe.

No breath should be spared for growling but Xander did it anyway, a sound wrenched out from the base of his ribs. He gripped Xiang’s thigh hard, fingers digging into the muscle, before he dragged his hips back. Kept his eyes on Xiang’s to watch them go wide as he rocked inside, deliberately slow, rotating his hips all the while. 

Welts on Xander’s arms to add to the injuries from the mission, to the bruises blossoming on his throat and deeper still in his trachea. 

It was a fucking competition. Both senses of the words. Xander grinned even as Xiang surged forward. Their teeth clacked against each other, Xiang’s sharp canines slicing across Xander’s bottom lip even as he inhaled deep, stealing more breath. Xander’s air was running out and he knew it, but he didn’t stop his hips from moving, didn’t let Xiang’s leg go. Just wrenched his other arm out of beneath his body so he could tangle those fingers into Xiang’s hair, keeping him where he was.

The wet noises of his cock fucking into Xiang’s hole filled the room. The even wetter sounds of Xiang’s soft, huffing moans. Warmth sparking inside Xander, higher than his cock, as Xiang’s head dropped, cheek hot against Xander’s neck and collarbone.

Xander should be getting bored by this. Usually he was by the second time, and this was already beyond the third. He wasn't a man for holding onto things; he liked the chase better, with the adrenaline and the uncertainty. He lived for the rush and predictability was the ultimate enemy.

But he wasn't bored. Xiang looked almost the same - eyes half-lidded, lashes brushing across his cheeks, his lips wet with spit and swollen by his own teeth - but it was the 'almost' that had ensnared Xander and wasn't letting go. There were shadows that hovered around Xiang, the darkness of them casting his body into stark, sharp relief, so different from the previous time, and Xander...

Hell, maybe he should just fuck it and be stereotypical: ‘enigmatic’ was the best damned word he could think of to describe Xiang. The man was a hell lot better at the 'international man of mystery’ schtick than Xander had ever been – not that Xander ever fully tried for that, but that didn’t mean Xiang wasn’t good at it. 

It wasn’t just the mystery that kept drawing him in. Xander couldn't put a finger on what it _was_ , but he knew what it wasn't, at least.

Xiang made a low sound, ragged and harsh. His cock jerked between their stomachs, painting sticky wet on their skins. A vein on his arm twitched as he finally let go of the ribbons, the silk loosening from around Xander’s throat. Xander groaned, burying himself as deep as he could by instinct.

Couldn’t be bored, really, when Xiang could make him come so hard that white took over his world entirely. 

When his heart had deafeningly loud and his brain’s shrieking had stopped, Xander found himself staring at the ceiling. He could feel the weight of the ribbons on top of his chest, and Xiang was a half-dark shadow at the corner of his eyes.

“Good thing I didn’t do this on you instead,” he said, curving the corner of his mouth upwards. “Your skin isn’t tough like an elephant’s.”

Xiang’s eyes slanted towards him. Xander didn’t need full vision to know; the weight of that gaze was more than enough 

“Was that,” he said, every word now precisely enunciated, “another stupid guess at my name?”

Sitting up, Xander peeled the condom off his soft cock, tying it off and throwing it over his shoulder where it smacked wetly against the nightstand.

“Wasn’t really a guess,” he said, not even bothering to hide his grin. “More like an attempt at one.”

Nails sunk into the back of Xander’s neck, right over the triple-x tattoo. 

“Still shit,” Xiang told him, which was really stating the obvious. Because Xander might not know Chinese, but there was enough grace in Xiang that comparing him to an elephant would never be fitting.

“Stop trying to think,” Xiang continued. His eyes were narrowed on Xander, his nails scraping downwards. “It’s loud, and you’re not good at it.”

Xander gave that a moment’s consideration. Then he tipped his head towards Xiang, hands gathering up the ribbons.

“Okay,” he said, and threw the loops over silk over the other man’s neck. He pulled.

When Xiang allowed himself to be dragged in, he was smirking like he had won something. Xander threw his head back.

He laughed.


	3. 祥, “Auspicious”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Un-negotiated public sex.

Xiang didn’t appear in his line of sight for a long time. 

When he finally did, it was February and whatever snow London might have had, had turned entirely back to rain. Grey rain that dripped from the skies like God was up there shaking his dick free of the last drops of piss.

Xander was hanging around London’s Chinatown when he saw him. Not entirely by his choice: apparently, Nicks had some family here, and he dragged Tennyson along with him. No one with any brain would allow the two of them anywhere together, mostly because they would end up arrested and Becky was starting to complain that erasing their arrest records over and over was taking her away from spending time with Serena and Adele.

How Becky managed to complain about doing her job and having it taken seriously, Xander didn’t know. He didn’t want to, either.

They were all inside the bar – named ‘Award-winning Gay Bar’ for reasons no one wanted to contemplate – and Xander was outside because sometimes he got sick of having to breathe around the amount of sex that hung around his team. The air wasn’t crisp at all overhead, heavy instead with humidity that was heavy enough to choke. Nearly as bad as the Philippines. 

Digging into a pocket, he looked around. The streets were all lined with red lanterns, some of them decorated with characters he recognised. It was, he knew, the festive season for the Chinese – if he remembered correctly, it was their New Year. The occasion was the reason Nicks had dragged all of them here. Xander didn’t quite understand it – he wasn’t much of a man for traditions or sanctities of holidays – but it was all rather pretty.

He was halfway through lighting his cigarette when he saw a flash and felt a hand closing around his bicep.

“Didn’t your mother teach you to not accost strangers?” Xander said once he had shoved Xiang against the nearest wall. He glanced at his hand; the cigarette had been bent. He put it into his mouth and lit it anyway.

Xiang wasn’t dressed as he usually did. He had some sort of plain suit on: shirt pressed and starched stark white, black blazer, black pants. A corporate drone’s uniform. 

The look was so incongruous with who he was and what he usually wore that Xander had to lean in and grin at him.

“Haven’t you returned all of your mother’s teachings?” Xiang arched at eyebrow at him. He lifted his leg, and rubbed his knee against Xander’s crotch. “Or do you accost every single stranger that you come across?”

“Seems like you’re the one who is doing most of the accosting,” Xander said. He didn’t even try to back away – if Xiang was going to knee him in the balls, he would’ve done so already, and Xander wouldn’t have been able to stop him – and leaned into the touch instead. “Or is this the way you greet every attractive man you come across?”

“Whoever said you’re attractive?”

The question was so ridiculous that Xander laughed. He grinned at Xiang, baring teeth, before he slammed a hand against the whitewashed wall of the bar, looming over the other man with all of his height and width advantage on display.

“So is there somewhere you’re thinking ‘bout, or…” he rocked against the knee again, eyelids fluttering at the pleasure crawling up his spine. “We’re going to do this right here?”

Xiang laughed. He reached up and plucked the cigarette from Xander’s mouth. His lips were unfairly plush, practically smooth despite the lines around the edges of his eyes, and his cheeks hollowed as he sucked at the filter. 

He didn’t need to do that. If Xander wasn’t being careful, he would say that Xiang was being all indulgent.

“No one is out here,” Xiang drawled. “We can do it inside. If you dare.” He flicked the butt towards the drain, and turned his back.

Look, it wasn’t that Xander was stupid – he knew he was being baited. He was fine with taking it up.

The bar was crowded and noisy, bodies pressed in everywhere and rubbing up against each other. Difficult to miss the team – Nicks was up there on the platform, having taken over from the DJ while Xander was outside. For reasons he didn’t want to try to discern, Tennyson was right beside him, and Xander could hear that familiar Scottish brogue belting out some Lady Gaga, entirely out of tune. 

He had the barest glimpse of Adele standing in the middle of the dance floor, feeding Becky cherries from her fruity drink while Serena was draped over her back, before he followed Xiang to the back of the bar, near the toilets.

Xiang moved like he knew where he was going; like he knew this place well. Wasn’t that interesting?

Just before they reached the toilets, Xander grabbed onto Xiang’s shoulder. He spun him around and slammed him against the wall. Beside them, a few men skittered away; Xander wasn’t looking at them, eyes fixated instead on Xiang.

There was something here that wasn’t right. Something in the clench of his fists; the white, white knuckles. Something in the way he was staring at Xander, lips pressed thin and head tipped downwards, not meeting his eyes.

Ever since the first time they met, Xiang had always met his gaze straight on.

“Yo,” Xander said. He tried to tighten his grip on the man.

But Xiang slipped away from him easily, feet moving faster than Xander could properly see. The wall was now at Xander’s back and Xiang was dropping to his knees. 

The bar was upscale but the floor was as filthy as any other stinking dive during a full night. Xander spared a thought for those new-looking slacks.

Noise pressed in around them but the clacking of Xander’s belt was still loud enough to be heard. He looked down, one eyebrow rising as he scraped his nail over Xiang’s jaw. There was the barest hint of stubble.

“If you’re gonna use me, you could’ve just told me,” he said.

When Xiang finally looked up to him, he reached out and gripped those short strands and tilted his head up. Xander grinned, crooked on one side, and continued, “Ain’t as if I’d mind.”

“Then why would you need to be told?” Xiang asked. Or maybe Xander was just imagining it: everything was so loud, and Nicks had turned on some kind of bass that was rattling the walls. He had to rely on reading Xiang’s lips as he said, “Stop trying to use your brain, Xander, and enjoy this.”

He leaned forward, and nuzzled his cheek against Xander’s boxers, over the growing bulge of his cock. Which, Xander supposed, was as much incentive as any.

“You keep insulting my intelligence,” Xander drawled back, not bothering to raise his voice, “and I’m going to start thinking that you don’t like me.”

Maybe Xiang heard him, maybe he was also guessing, but he was laughing. The sound was deep and rough that it carried itself to Xander’s ears beneath the wall of noise. The heat of Xiang’s breath on his crotch twined itself up the knobs of his spine.

“But you do make a compelling argument for a man to stop thinking,” Xander said. He thudded his head back against the wall as Xiang took him into his mouth.

Kept his eyes open to look straight into those of people who were now starting to surround them, keeping a wide berth but definitely not leaving them alone. Xander smirked, arching his hips to show off a little more. His cock slid further into Xiang’s mouth.

It was almost enough to make him have an ego trip, having this man on his knees with everyone else around them. 

Funny thing was, he had had dozens of people in this position. On their knees, worshipping his cock. Maybe not here. Maybe not always with eyes on them. But he had had this before.

Still, the way Xiang’s cheeks bulged over the girth of his cock, his eyes falling closed, was something special. Half-choking, his throat fluttering around the head of Xander’s dick when he couldn’t fit everything into his mouth. The rumbling groan he made when Xander fitted his thumb against the hollow of his throat just to feel his cock stretching it.

Only Xiang could make Xander feel like he was the one on his knees instead. Like he was the one on his knees, having all of his cock-sucking skills put on display.

Like it wasn’t Xander’s cock claiming Xiang’s mouth, but instead Xiang taking possession of his dick, marking the sensitive skin with every lick of his raspy tongue and scrape of his rough teeth. Like the sweat-soaked, grainy strands of his hair beneath Xander’s hand were threads of red-hot iron, branding his skin somehow.

Hell. Xander never used to think so much during sex.

It didn’t take him long. Couldn’t have even if he tried, because Xiang had his hands on his hips, squeezing muscle to urge Xander him to fuck his throat. Xander groaned, smacking his head back against the door. Eyes half-lidded, he caught sight of the crowd around them. Eyes, all of the eyes, frozen and yet pressing in nonetheless. Gazes so heavy that they had turned physical; ghostly fingers scraping over his chest and sides, moving down to wrap around the base of his cock.

A single pair of dark eyes cut off his view of the rest. Hands closing around Xander’s face. A strange kind of intimacy, their eyes meeting. Xiang tipping his head up, his breath ghosting over Xander’s nose, the smell of it thick with salt and sour. Xander leaned in and kissed him, darting his tongue inside.

Xiang hadn’t swallowed. Xander’s come poured back into his own mouth. Would be disgusting from anyone else, but Xander laughed around the spasms of his own throat instead, cupping the back of Xiang’s neck. 

Inanely, he thought about those lanterns outside, hanging all over the streets. The characters written on them.

His third attempt came because his hand was right there, and Xander had always been a bit of an opportunist. He started to try to trace the one character he recognised, one of those he had circled on the page he had tabbed in that dictionary he bought. Xiang froze, but Xander didn’t let go.

“You’ve been pretty lucky,” Xander said once he was done. He turned his head to smear the drips of come that slipped out of his mouth over Xiang’s chin.

Arching his head back, Xiang gave him an incredulous stare. But there was a minute twitch at the corner of his mouth. Xander deliberately didn’t poke at it, merely levelling an expectant look at the other man.

“No,” Xiang said. Another laugh wrenched out of him, and he shook his head. “Your guesses are getting worse.”

Another strange intimacy: being so close that Xander could hear the words painted in Xiang’s breath, feel the shapes of them skittering over his skin.

“You can put me out of my misery and tell me,” he pointed out, and grinned.

Xiang snorted. He dragged Xander forward by his elbows, and Xander went with him until their positions were reversed, with Xiang’s back was to the wall, and Xander’s own was exposed to the stares still being levelled at them.

“I’d rather put you out of your misery in a more permanent way,” Xiang said.

Xander threw his head back and laughed, the sound slicing through the music. Or maybe it was because everything was quieter around them, now.

It didn’t matter. Xander closed his hand around the hard bulge tenting Xiang’s now-dirty slacks, and rubbed against it hard. Xiang’s hips stuttered, thrusting forward, and Xander dropped to his knees.

“Really?” he said, speaking against the high-quality wool of Xiang’s pants. “I didn’t think you were into necrophilia.”

It was almost a pity he had to cut off Xiang’s laughter, Xander thought. But making him moan like this gave Xander the same kind of warmth, so he supposed it was worth it.

(Later, much later, after Xiang had come and Xander was in the midst of feeding him his own come as payback, they were thrown out of the bar. 

Xander’s phone buzzed with two texts.

From Nicks: “Stop stealing my spotlight.” 

Adele: “Nice show.”

Neither seemed to matter more than the fact that those weird shadows around Xiang’s eyes had disappeared.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Award-Winning Gay Bar’ really exists, and is around two minutes’ walk from the Leicester Square tube station. I never had a chance to check out how it’s like inside, so that part is still mostly fictional.


	4. 想, “Think”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Un-negotiated knifeplay, bloodplay, breathplay, and violence. Slightly less of a case of dangerous kink than one of “Is this sex or attempted murder? No one is sure!”

The next time they met, Xander was expecting him. 

See, the shit happening back in America was now involving the biggest dragon in the entire Asian continent. Xander didn’t need to know the details – honestly, he didn’t want to, because that was what Gibbons was for – but apparently an arms dealer from China had gotten his hands on some Japanese uranium, and was hiding out in Hong Kong.

Adele and Serena weren’t part of this particular mission. Not out in the open, anyway. It had nothing to do with their abilities and everything with how they stuck out on the streets. There was no way Adele could stay hidden when she attracted stares everywhere she went, and everyone would remember a white woman with green hair no matter how inconspicuous she acted.

Look, it wasn’t as if Xander didn’t know what it felt like to have stares on him wherever he went. Sometimes he wondered how the hell Nicks and Serena dealt with it whenever they had missions in Europe. He suspected that both of them had some streak of exhibitionism in them. It would explain the noises he had to deal with whenever they were stowed in places with thin walls.

Not that his team mattered now. The mission was over.

He found Xiang right as he confronted the dealer’s personal army. The man had appeared right on the opposite street, with Hawk and Talon flanking him, and they mowed down mooks together. There weren’t any planes involved this time, just another box, this one a lot more radioactive than Pandora’s. Said box was now safely in Gibbons’s hands, for him to deal with however he liked. Probably to give it back to the Japanese.

Look, sometimes he did give a shit about the outcome of his hard work. But for reasons he couldn’t entirely discern, much less put into words, he trusted Gibbons.

Right now, Xander was more concerned with Xiang’s hair. The strands kept falling over his eyes even though they were matted together, gleaming dull red underneath this shitty motel room’s dim yellow lights. Dried blood from a man’s slit throat. Xander dug his own fingers deep into the thin mattress of the bed, refusing to give into the urge to reach out and touch.

Not when Xiang was smirking down at him like this. Not when that long, pale throat – streaked, too, with flakes of blood – was letting escape deep, gasping moans whenever Xiang sank back down on Xander’s cock. Not when every move he made had his knife. still sheathed underneath his arm where a gun was usually holstered, glinting. Even the plastic hilt was catching the shitty yellow lights. 

They were in a motel room in Mongkok; the closest they could find to that leader’s hideout. The walls here were thin. It was too bad that the rest of the team had headed back towards the outskirts of the city where Adele and Serena were hiding, or else this would be Xander’s payback for the nights they had kept him up.

“You’re not paying attention,” Xiang said. He drew his head back up again, teeth glinting as they were bared in Xander’s direction.

Before Xander could reply, Xiang had pulled out the knife. Xander’s breath stuttered, but it was too late because Xiang moved faster than any snake Xander had ever seen, and the blade was already held against his throat.

Bastard didn’t even have the consideration to use the blunt side. Then again, Xander would be disappointed if he had decided to.

“No need for me to,” Xander drawled out. He jerked his hips up slightly, balls slapping against the curve of Xiang’s ass just to watch him shudder. “You’re having plenty of fun with my cock without me participating.”

Just like Xiang would be disappointed if Xander stopped talking just because he had a knife at his throat.

Xiang laughed, low and ragged. His nails scraped down Xander’s chest. More flakes of brown fell onto the mattress, from Xiang’s hands and his own skin. The knife bit deeper, until every breath Xander took was risky. “If you’re looking for praise…”

“Don’t even bother,” Xander snorted. “I know just how good I am.”

He reached up, closing his hands around Xiang’s hips. Keeping his eyes on Xiang, Xander flexed his arms, lifting the other man up entirely until only the head of his cock remained inside. 

Then he thrust up, hard. Xiang’s muscles twitched beneath him, around him, and Xander shuddered at the sound of Xiang’s cry echoing and echoing in his ears. He didn’t think he could get harder than he already was, but he could feel his cock thickening even further. Xiang squeezed his eyes shut.

Blood was pooling in the hollow of Xander’s own throat. The knife had bitten into skin. His head was shrieking again, telling him to get away.

“There is,” Xiang said, voice irritatingly steady, “a line between courage and stupidity.” 

Xander moved one hand from Xiang’s hip to his wrist. Xiang could definitely still open his throat up entirely, but Xander – was hoping, was guessing, was gambling – knew he wouldn’t.

Leaning in, he smiled, and licked a long line up Xiang’s cheek, following the trail of blood that had caked there.

“Bit too late for that, ain’t it?” he asked. Then he lifted Xiang again, and slammed his hips upwards.

Xiang bared his teeth, growling. Xander laughed. His hand left Xiang’s wrist to dip inside the trickling pool of his own blood. He drummed his knuckles over the blade to widen the wound just a bit further, and then slicked the pads of his fingers over the blood. 

Before Xiang could properly react, he shoved two inside his hole without pulling out. 

He saw the moment when Xiang registered the new intrusion: his body went so still. The grip on the knife was made steady only with white knuckles. Xander grinned, watching muscles twitch on a face that was usually so controlled.

“You—” Xiang started. Right then, Xander twisted his fingers, shoving them as deep inside as he could.

Xiang’s entire body _jerked_. His back bowed, and his head dropped back. His thighs trembled and went slack, sinking him further down, wedging Xander’s cock and fingers deeper inside him. Muscles on his jaw twitched with how hard he was gritting his teeth.

The knife clattered onto the mattress, the sound dull. The sheets were thin but still white, and the blood splattered on the cloth stood out, oily red beneath the lights. 

Xander tore his eyes away from it to focus on Xiang again. He splayed his hand over Xiang’s chest, thumb finding the sternum. He dug his nail into the skin there, the vulnerability every human had, and Xiang made a sound that was almost like a sob as Xander moved up, up, all the way to his throat. He squeezed.

At the moment Xiang’s eyes popped open, he pulled his fingers back out and shoved the man down with both hands. The rickety metal frame creaked, the hinges obviously too weak to hold their weight but Xander ignored it to grin. He could hear the way Xiang’s pulse was hammering against his fingertips.

“What do you call someone who might prefer being a dead body when they’re being fucked?” It was hard to keep his voice even, but Xander made a good effort, if he said so himself. "You’re the smart one, Xiang. You tell me.”

Xiang’s eyes flashed – he caught the reference, the guess, then – and he _moved_. Legs came up to wrap around Xander’s neck, dragging him in, Xiang pressing his knees against his own shoulder. Knees and thighs over the open wound on Xander’s neck, nudging it further open and spilling blood down on Xiang’s pale chest.

“Shut up and fuck me properly,” he snarled.

“But you won’t be thinking, then,” Xander said, blithe. “Can’t make you suddenly unfitting of your name.” 

Dragging him even closer, Xiang’s hands cupped his face. Their mouths smashed together, Xiang’s teeth slicing at Xander’s lips. Blood filled both of their mouths, mixing with the dried flakes of dead men. The stench of rusting iron filled the air. Xander laughed even as he felt himself invaded by Xiang’s tongue.

Hell, he knew that this was a stupid guess. He had done enough research to figure out what Chinese given names were usually like, and the most common term for thinking couldn’t be it. But there was something horribly thrilling in Xiang turning his violence against him like this; in slapping his own hands against the mattress to hold his body up as he started fucking Xiang in earnest while Xiang tried to devour his soul through his mouth.

Like this, he could swallow down Xiang’s ragged moans along with his own blood until the red had covered his entire vision, until his body thrummed along with the welts that Xiang was raising on his skin.

He could breathe in Xiang’s moans, store them up deep inside his blood until every glance at the thin line on his throat would remind him.


	5. 翔, “Soar”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** There is no porn in this chapter. I’m serious.

“We need a vacation,” Becky declared.

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Xander said around the cigarette in his mouth, his hands busy with trying to wrap up the knife wound on his calf. “But our jobs are basically an endless vacation?”

“Somewhere with the sun, the sea,” Becky said, clearly ignoring him. “With plenty of parties with good music.”

“Why the hell would you need good music when you have me?” Nicks demanded from the corner where he was cleaning his gun. “I can make good music out of the 120kps mp3s, dammit.”

“Sun, sea, and parties,” Becky repeated, louder now. She slapped her hands on the table, but her eyes weren’t looking at anybody. “Preferably no one trying to shoot at us.”

“Thought you’d already gotten over your fear of people shooting at us?” Tennyson piped up. He was on his phone, most likely looking at schematics of the next cars he would be smashing into junk. “You’ve been handling guns pretty well.”

“It’s not good for our health to be under stress all the time,” Becky said. Her eyes scanned through the group of them, finally deigning to take notice of the very people she was trying to convince. “We need to take the occasional break.”

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, baby girl,” Adele drawled from where she was on the floor, surrounded by the dismantled pieces of all of her guns. “But we’re not really in the business of trying to keep our health.”

Xander snorted. It wasn’t the nickname – it had been long-running enough that he had gotten bored of imagining the implications – but the fact that Adele was even joining the conversation. Woman was starting to get all soft. In some ways, at least: Adele was still the most trigger-happy of all of them.

“Getting to surf would be nice.”

Not just Adele, but Serena, too. Xander rolled his eyes. He closed the dictionary he had been perusing, peering at the rest of his team.

“What’s the point of surfing on boards when you can do it on motorcycles?” Xander asked.

“Sea’s not just for surfing, you know,” Adele said, looking at Xander out of the corner of her eye. “You can do things like lounge on the beach. Or, I don’t know, do what people usually do in water: _swim_.”

“You’re just pissed that if we go on vacation, you won’t get to meet Xiang,” Becky added, crossing her arms. She turned her nose up at Xander when he quirked an eyebrow in her direction. On the floor, Adele gave a cackle.

“How about Australia?” Nicks said. When everyone turned to look at him, he shrugged. “Plenty of sun, sea, and parties along the Gold Coast,” he ticked off his fingers, “and Australia’s probably the one place that’ll be left going ‘what the fuck’ even when everyone’s shooting nuclear missiles at each other.”

For some reason, Tennyson burst out laughing so hard that he fell of his chair. Xander jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t explain. I don’t want to know.”

Then he turned back to the rest of them. “I’ll tell Gibbons to fuck off for the next couple of weeks,” he said, sighing. Then, before they could start cheering, he threw up his hands. “When did I lose everyone’s respect, huh?”

Serena raised her arm in exaggerated slow motion. Her finger pointed, unerring, at the dictionary that Xander had left on his chair.

“I’ll make sure to tell him that you miss him,” Serena said, tone saccharine-sweet. “Or you can tell him yourself.” 

With the same deliberation, Xander folded down his fingers until only the middle ones were left standing.

“Maybe I can drown all of you in the sea,” Xander said, and smiled.

***

Look, Xander wasn’t good at vacations. The long one he took when he was dead ended up mostly as a working one where he was his own boss and did what he wanted and was paid for none of it. Which meant that he wasn’t working, but the point of it was that he was restless when there was nothing for him to _do_.

Meaning that, by the second day that he was on the Gold Coast, he was already bored.

He let his team go free and do what they wanted. Tennyson was talking about trying to crash a car into the ocean, and Nicks, who had gotten just as insane as him through osmosis by sex, was talking out loud about plans about how to accomplish that. Xander was determinedly not thinking about what the women were doing, mostly because Adele jabbed a gun under his chin to tell him to stop being a pervert.

Okay, it wasn’t the gun that had convinced him, but the point about respect instead of sexual objects. But the gun bit was easier to explain.

So he was left alone on the beach, under an obnoxiously colourful umbrella, surfing the Dark Web on his tablet using a portable Wi-Fi router he stole from some random’s hotel room. When someone dropped down next to him, he didn’t even look up, figuring that it was either some tourist or someone Gibbons had sent after him.

“It’s the younger generation that’s supposed to be stuck to their devices, you know.”

Xander’s head jerked up. Xiang, of all people, was sitting right there, with a pair of sunglasses, as obnoxious and rainbow-y as the umbrella, sitting on the bridge of his nose. He was smirking, and there a fucking _vape_ held between his fingers.

“This is buttfuck nowhere.” He paused. “Are you trying to be some sort of aging hipster?”

“You’re not the only ones who are allowed a vacation,” Xiang said. He put his mouth to the vape and blew a huge cloud of smoke in Xander’s face. It stank of fucking cotton candy.

A part of Xander’s mind noted that Xiang was wearing another of those ridiculously tacky floral print shirts he owned for inexplicable reasons, and he had somehow found neon green Bermudas to clash horribly with them. His entire outfit was so eye-searing that Xander had to look away.

“I don’t know where to start with the things that are wrong with you,” he said finally, turning to the sky. The sun was bright, but at least it wasn’t deliberately trying to make his eyes bleed.

Honestly, despite his initial reaction, Xander wasn’t entirely surprised that Xiang was here. There had never been any reason for Xiang to have followed along as unasked-for but welcome reinforcements for some of their missions, leaving them to fend for themselves in others. Xander had tried, but couldn’t find any pattern whatsoever. 

“If you’re taking a vacation,” he started finally, “the logic is that you have been working.”

When Xander slid his eyes over to look at him, Xiang only smiled. He took another puff from his vape, sending stinking-sweet mist floating around him to obscure his face. “You have to try harder than that,” he said.

Xander laughed. “That’d imply that I actually care.”

Look, he was a guy who knew his limits; knew exactly what he was good at. Figuring Xiang out had never been one of those things, and Xander had long gotten used to the idea that Xiang might just end up shooting him instead of his enemies one day when Xander saw him during their missions. It would be shit if he did, of course, but it wouldn’t be _surprising_.

Thing was, though, it was harder and harder for him to believe that. He couldn’t forget how Xiang had looked then, in London, in that suit that had been tailored for him and yet hadn’t fitted him at all. The wideness of Xiang’s eyes, the whites showing, when Xander had put a hand on his throat and squeezed… that was seared into Xander’s brain. Or maybe tattooed there, at the back of his eyelids.

Xander was a simple kind of guy, but Xiang was a man of contradictions and impossibilities. Mix the two together, and you just had something murky.

Xiang wasn’t saying a word. When Xander looked at him, he was staring into the distance, arms loosely hanging from between his raised knees.

“Have I run out of guesses yet?” Xander asked.

Maybe this had become another game that they were playing now, Xander a foolish mouse trying to chase after the cat that was batting his paws at him. But Xiang was smirking at him, eyes sharp again, and he looked so much more like he usually did that Xander felt his own breathing ease.

“I never did give you a limited number,” he said.

Technically, Xiang had given him nothing. Xander didn’t say that, though, instead reaching for one of the water bottles he had lying by the side of the mat he was sitting on. He scooted to the edge and up-ended the bottle over the sand.

Look, he had been doing his research, best as he could. There were a limited number of characters that could fit the way Xiang spelled his name, and some rules about how names should be like that narrowed the possibilities even further. Of course, if he knew the exact tone in which Xiang’s name was properly pronounced, he would have the answer immediately, but…

One, he didn’t think that Xiang would tell him even if he asked. Two, Xander actually wasn’t sure if he could even spot the difference between the tones if Xiang told him. Better to guess, and make a fool of himself in that particular way.

He drew the character he had in his head with a fingertip. The left radical like the character for sheep, except with a wriggly tail instead of a straight one. Two feather-like things, repeated, for the middle and the right. He flicked sand away from his fingers when he was done.

“Well?” he looked at Xiang expectantly.

Xiang raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you referring to me,” he said, “or those?” He waved a hand towards the sea, indicating the flocks of cawing seagulls.

“Both,” Xander shrugged. He grinned. “You’re like one of those. You’re not fit for cages.”

“Ah, yes,” Xiang said around the mouthpiece of his vape. “And I make a nuisance of myself and eat plastic, too.”

“Hey, you said that, not me,” Xander said, jabbing a finger in Xiang’s direction. “I just saw the feather-like radicals and then I figured that it could fit.”

“The what?”

For the first time for the two years they had known each other, Xiang actually looked _surprised_.

“These,” Xander said, waving his hand towards them. His grin grew sharper, baring teeth at the corner of his mouth. “I haven’t only been looking at porn on that thing,” he jerked his head to the tablet, “you know.”

“Hah,” Xiang said. 

Xander wasn’t the kind of man who spoke in implications; he preferred being straightforward. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t; that he didn’t know exactly what it _meant_ for him to have made all of that effort.

Xiang stood up. Xander craned his neck up, shielding his eyes with a hand. He wouldn’t be surprised if Xiang left at the moment; if Xander never saw him again because of what Xander had done. It tugged at something inside him terribly, but he, again, wouldn’t be surprised.

“Come on,” Xiang said, and he was holding up a hand. Xander stared up at him.

Then he laughed. He grabbed his tablet, and allowed Xiang to pull him up to his feet. 

See, he had never been someone who would pull open a horse’s jaw to stare into his mouth.   
Maybe he should be, but…

Really, what was the excitement in that?


	6. 项

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Un-negotiated bloodplay again. Also, is Xander bottoming a warning? I don’t even know how to warn for this anymore.

Xiang’s hotel room was one of the suites in the Hilton, and he brought Xander there in a Maserati that gleamed with new paintwork and stank of both leather and money. Xander couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow at both: he still didn’t know how Xiang had gotten his funds, and even if Gibbons had been lying to him about Xiang not being a current Triple X, Gibbons had never been this particular kind of free with the budget.

“You keep flashing all this and I’ll start to think that you’re working for a boardroom billionaire somewhere,” Xander said.

Looming over him, Xiang’s lips curved upwards. “What makes you think that the boardroom billionaire isn’t me?” he drawled, fingers curling inwards to scrape his nails over Xander’s skin.

“Pretty sure that some rich man’s son would’ve gotten some sort of diplomatic immunity instead of a label as a terrorist,” Xander said, arching up his back as Xiang scratched lines down his chest through his thin tank top. 

“Maybe that was supposed to be my backup plan if you hadn’t come rushing in like some kind of knight in shining armour.” Xiang settled himself on top of Xander’s lap, looking at him over the top of his obnoxious sunglasses. “You’ll never know.”

In a flash, Xander reached up and whipped those stupid glasses off, folding them in his hands until the nose bridge broke between his fingers. When Xiang’s eyes narrowed, he grinned.

“I’m pretty sure that a rich man’s son would have better taste than fifty-cent sunglasses from the Philippines,” he clicked his tongue, shaking his head. Letting the glasses drop onto the mattress, he bunched Xiang’s shirt beneath his hands and pulled outwards, ripping buttons’ threads in the process. “Or a shirt like this from… what, the Bermudas?”

“Trinidad,” Xiang corrected. His lips were pressed flat, but he wasn’t reaching for Xander’s throat or trying to smack him away. “Not that you’d even understand the difference.”

“Kind of hard to tell when I can’t look at you properly,” Xander pointed out. “I need my eyes to save the world, you see.”

A barking laugh. Xander breathed in sharp through his nose as Xiang bent down. Their teeth smashed against each other, sending sparks of white pain up to Xander’s skull, and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried his best to keep still.

It was different, this time. Usually, Xiang would stand there and wait for Xander to go to him like some latter-day Emperor awaiting the worship that he rightfully deserved. Xiang rarely initiated anything, but that was fair: he made the effort to turn up, and that was already more than what Xander had ever asked for.

No, there were exceptions. _An_ exception, other than this one. 

But there were fingers on his belt now, distracting. Xander sighed and let the thought go with the air. He tilted his head back as he settled his weight onto his heels, lifting up his hips. 

“Well?” Xiang asked, looking expectant.

Xander stared at him for a moment before he realised that Xiang was, for some inexplicable reason, asking for _permission_. He threw his head back and laughed before he reached out, grabbing the other man by the collar of his god-awful shirt.

“If you wanna fuck me this time, you better take off all that shit you’re wearing,” Xander told him, trying to be matter-of-fact but only managing breathy hoarseness. “Like I said, I gotta still be able to see.”

For some reason, that made Xiang stop and stare at him for a moment. Xander blinked, cocking his head to the side as he searched those dark eyes.

When he realised the reason behind Xiang’s hesitation, he threw his head back and laughed. 

“It’s not that I stopped people from fucking me, you know,” he said, amusement twitching the corners of his mouth. “Just that they don’t even bother trying the moment they look at me.”

He reached up and patted Xiang’s cheek, gentle and condescending. “You included.”

Okay, that might be pushing his luck a bit too much, because Xiang growled and snapped Xander’s pants and underwear off, throwing them to the side with such force that the cloth and leather and metal button clacked loud against the wall. Then he was pulling off the shirt and his own shorts, which went the same way as Xander’s. 

Hell, if this was what he got when he pushed Xiang’s buttons, he didn’t know why he hadn’t done it sooner. Oh, right; he hadn’t trusted Xiang to not suddenly leave him all high and dry the moment that he did something wrong.

Their mouths smashed against each other’s again. Xander parted his lips, raising one leg to hook over Xiang’s waist. Would’ve been better if he could use both, but his fighting style specialised in brute strength and dirty tricks, not flexibility and balance.

“You gonna fuck me dry?” he murmured against Xiang’s mouth.

Honestly, Xander wouldn’t mind. Everything was going too smoothly right now, and there was an itch underneath his skin that practically begged for a blade’s edge.

But Xiang snorted. “As tempting as that thought is…” he cupped Xander’s face, and did something with his tongue on Xander’s lips and teeth that made him see stars for a moment. 

Things were getting weirder and weirder. Xiang had never done this. Xander liked to think that he had made Xiang lose his head a couple of times out of pleasure, sure, but that would be lying. 

His head was buzzing. He dragged in breath through his nose, and tried to shut it up. 

Xiang decided to help him, at least a little: there were cold, wet fingertips over Xander’s hole.

Where the fuck did he even _get_ that? At this point, if Xiang told him that heh ad some sort of hammer-space like comic book characters, Xander would’ve believed him wholeheartedly.

The thought made him laugh again, the sound stuttering in his throat when Xiang slipped two fingers inside. Xander gritted his teeth, heels digging into the mattress and Xiang’s back because, fuck, he wasn’t kidding about not doing this often.

“Are you getting all nervous on me?”

Xander didn’t even need to look at Xiang to know the exact shape of the smirk on his lips; the same kind of smirk he had whenever he appeared somewhere he wasn’t expected. Xander didn’t bother rolling his eyes, instead settling his foot steadier over Xiang’s back as he thrust downwards, swallowing Xiang’s fingers until his palm was brushing over Xander’s balls.

“This looks like nervousness to you?” he asked, opening his eyes to bare his teeth at Xiang. He twisted his hips, biting back a gasp when callused pads rubbed over the spot inside. “Get on with it, bastard.”

Fingers drawing back, Xiang’s smirk widened. “But I’m trying to be all nice and accommodating,” he said, and slammed them back in.

Barely managing to stifle down the instinctive reaction, Xander clenched down hard. He pushed himself up to his elbows, leering at Xiang. “When the hell have I ever liked that?”

“That,” Xiang said, “is precisely the point.”

A point that made no sense, Xander wanted to say. But Xiang was looking at him again, those dark eyes heavily hooded. Xander cocked his head, meeting that gaze. Maybe he should shut up a bit, and wait Xiang out.

Second part wasn’t that difficult – he had been doing it for the last couple of years – but the first… 

Not that he needed to think about it now: Xiang was pulling his fingers out. His clean hand gripped tight onto Xander’s calf, pressing it hard against his own waist. He plucked a condom from the sheets – one that had definitely not been there before – and tore it open with his teeth. His eyes never left Xander’s. 

Look, Xander knew Xiang wasn’t as big as he was; almost as long, sure, but his cock was slimmer. Fitted his frame. But he still felt fucking huge as he forced Xander’s hole open pushing inside, slow but utterly inexorable.

Xander bit back the words, teeth sinking into his lip, but something must’ve showed in his eyes because Xiang threw his head back and laughed.

Then he started to move. And things went a lot blurrier after that. Xander just remembered Xiang’s hands on his hips, the grip bruising-tight as the man dragged him into his lap, fucking deep inside him while his arm flexed and the vein on it throbbed with his every breath.

Xiang’s teeth on his shoulder, breaking skin. Blood over thick white sheets. Xander didn’t yell, but it was a hell of a close thing, air stuttering and twisting in his throat despite himself. 

It didn’t feel like coming when he did. Felt more like Xiang shoved a hand inside his very guts and dragged them all out, dunking them all into a pool of bleach until everything was set on acidic fire. 

Belaboured metaphor. 

Squeezed-shut eyes above him. Xiang still fucking into him, thrusts growing unsteady but still rubbing against Xander’s prostate every time he slammed in. Xander gritted his teeth, digging his nails into Xiang’s shoulders, urging and urging.

When Xiang came, his groan shuddered through the air and painted the walls with the sound of his voice. 

“Fuck,” Xander said. His arms flopped back down onto the sheets. It still felt cool after all they had done on it, silky and cleaner than his skin that had come all over it.

When Xiang didn’t make his usual smart-ass reply, Xander blinked down at him. Xiang had a strangely contemplative look on his face, his fingers tapping on the bottom of his bite-swollen lip.

“Shut up,” Xiang said, even though Xander hadn’t said anything. Xander shrugged.

After another moment, Xiang pushed himself up and pulled out. Xander bit back a hiss, continuing to stare. Xiang was obviously thinking about something, and Xander had some faint hope that, now Xiang was right in front of him when there was no reason whatsoever for him to be, he would somehow be able to see through that messy hair straight into Xiang’s head.

If one impossibility had already happened, then why not another, right? 

Xiang stood up. He headed over to the closet, tossing off the used condom he had somehow tied while Xander hadn’t been paying attention. As Xander watched, he yanked open one of the doors and took out a coat.

A very, very familiar coat. A coat that Xander had stowed into the bottom of his own luggage, all the way back in his own room in a completely different hotel. A coat that Xiang was now putting on.

The shoulders were too wide on him and the sleeves were too long. He looked like he was drowning in it. He should look ridiculous. Xander’s head spun as his blood rushed, confused, around his body. He just came so he couldn’t get hard again, but…

Damn if he didn’t want to.

“Where did you get that?” he asked, voice hoarse as he tried to sit up.

“Stay down,” Xiang said, his hand splaying on Xander’s chest, forcing his weight on him until Xander was flat on his back once more. The ends of the coat flared around Xiang’s hips, setting his soft, sticky cock into sharp relief against his thigh. Xander swallowed. He opened his mouth.

Mistake: Xiang took the chance then to dig his nails deep into Xander’s shoulder, right where his teeth had sunk so deep. Xander snapped his jaw shut, but it was too late: the sound of his cry was already echoing in the room, mixing with Xiang’s delighted laugh.

“Don’t move,” Xiang said. He lifted his hand, fingers stained with Xander’s blood, before he lowered it over his chest. 

Strokes. Steady and methodical. Xander didn’t need a fucking dictionary to know that Xiang was writing something. Character instead of alphabet. He tried to look down but all he could see was Xiang’s wrist, the pale sweat-slick of his skin set into sharp contrast by Xander’s bright red blood.

“Over two thousand two hundred years ago, there was a great warlord,” Xiang said, tone conversational. “He defeated the emperor, caused the downfall of a dynasty, and nearly became an emperor himself.” 

He lifted his eyes, and his lopsided smile showed teeth. “His name was Xiang Yu, and we share the first character of our full names.”

Wait.

Xander surged up, grabbing onto that thin, strong wrist before fingers could steak over his cheek. “It’s your _surname_?”

“Do you really think I’d go around letting all of you use my actual given name?” Xiang arched an eyebrow, not even trying to struggle against Xander’s grip.

“You use my first name all the time,” Xander pointed out.

Twisting his wrist, Xiang patted his arm with his bloodstained fingers. “All of you _laowai_ have no sense of propriety,” he said, mockery clear in his voice. “You didn’t even think about the possibility, did you?”

Of course Xander hadn’t. Who the hell went around being called by their last name? Xander couldn’t imagine being called ‘Cage’ all the time.

The sides of Xiang’s eyes were crinkling up harder; he was going to laugh again. Xander decided that he was tired of playing possum, and so he gripped Xiang’s hips. The mattress’s springs creaked – almost exactly the same way as they had back in that shitty motel room back in Mongkok, which was why Xander hated expensive hotel rooms – when Xiang’s back slammed against it.

A hand came up, probably to punch him. Xander caught it with his teeth, turning his head until he could take those bloodied fingers into his mouth. He sucked hard on them, his eyes narrowing on Xiang. Taking in the sight of him lying spread there on the bed, wearing nothing but his fur coat. Brown fur setting stark the dusky gold of Xiang’s skin.

Opening his mouth, Xander let go of Xiang’s hand with a soft _pop_. “Tell me your first name,” he demanded.

Xiang raised an eyebrow. “Are you tired of guessing already?”

“It took me two years to figure out one character, and that is when I already had the pinyin.” His pronunciation was atrocious, but Xander grinned anyway because Xiang obviously didn’t expect him to actually know the term. He leaned in again, teeth nipping over the wrist still held into the air. “You’ll end up dead before I figured out your given name without any clues.”

“So,” Xiang swung a leg over Xander’s shoulder, pulling him in. “What will you offer for a clue?”

There were so many important things that Xander needed to find out about this man. Where he got his money from; what he was doing when he followed him around the globe; who he was working for, even, and if he would abandon them to come work with Gibbons again alongside Xander instead. 

Whether he was going to give Xander his damned coat back.

“Does fucking your brains out again count?”

Xiang was laughing again, shoulders shaking. He turned his head, burying his nose into the fur collar of the coat as dark eyes flicked upwards to look into Xander’s.

“You can try,” he said.

Serena laughed at him, Xander knew, because he was obviously infatuated and made illogical by this man he was now looming over. Maybe she was right. Hell, she most likely was.

Bending down, Xander slapped one hand against the mattress and used the other to wrap around Xiang’s neck, holding there as he leaned in to kiss him. He timed it perfectly enough to breathe in that hitching exhale that Xiang made.

He never said that he was a man for wise decisions, or even self-preservation. He wouldn’t be doing what he was, wouldn’t be here in this hotel room, if he was.

“Aren’t you going to look into a mirror first?” Xiang asked when they broke apart to pant against each other. His nails scraped at Xander’s chest, terribly close to the dried blood painted over his skin.

Two years of guesswork. More effort than he really should have put in. Xander considered it.

Well, he had that name of that warlord guy, didn’t he? He could always check Wikipedia. If he remembered.

Right now, he had other priorities. He grinned.

“Later,” he said, and kissed Xiang again.

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Laowai_ is the Mandarin pronunciation of _gwailo_ , both meaning 老外, a derogatory terms for foreigners that are not of East Asian descent. 
> 
> This fic is just filthy porn with (maybe) developing relationships for over 11k words. What am I doing with my life? /settles into personal wagon down to ninth level of hell.

**Author's Note:**

> What am I doing with my life. Please feed me comments.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @[evocating](evocating.tumblr.com) where I'm either reblogging something, nerding out over something else, or both simultaneously.


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